


HOW STRAIT THE GATE: SEQUEL

by ivorygates



Series: How Strait The Gate [4]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Dark, Doctor Darkside, M/M, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 13:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates





	HOW STRAIT THE GATE: SEQUEL

There's a cemetery in Tennessee.

He could have been buried at Arlington. What came after doesn't matter. Cameron Mitchell helped save the Earth, and it's probable that no one will ever know. He nearly gave his life to do it. And then he came to the SGC, and Daniel tricked him and trapped him and lied to him, and Cameron Mitchell left, and then he killed himself.

Because -- it was something Mitchell never told him, though Daniel knew it anyway -- the only thing Mitchell had ever really wanted was the same thing his father and his father and his father had wanted: to serve his country.

_I didn't mean for him to die._

Hadn't expected him to die, hadn't wanted him to die.

Would have done what he'd done anyway. Because Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell -- gallant, reckless, and bold -- had been a danger to everyone from SG-1 to Earth.

In Daniel's opinion.

_'I'll be judge I'll be jury said cunning old Fury I'll try the whole cause and condemn you to death.'_

He'd gone to the funeral. They'd all gone: him, Sam, Teal'c. Of course everyone called Mitchell's death an 'accident.' Of course, everyone knew.

Jack had been there, too. That was a surprise. That he knew. That he'd gone. It never seems right for the sun to shine when someone goes into the ground, but as a matter of fact, Daniel has attended more funerals than he can count, and most of them have taken place on bright sunny days. If there _is_ a God, He's got a wretched sense of humor.

During the funeral, Jack sat in the front of the church, stood at the front of the mourners, beside Mitchell's parents. At the time, Daniel had wondered why.

Then the ceremony was over, the mourners dispersing to their cars so that the casket (closed, of course) could be discreetly lowered into the ground without witnesses. The elder Mitchells would be 'receiving' -- as the custom went, but the three of them -- the four of them -- would be leaving (at least Daniel supposed that Jack would be leaving too) for the airport immediately. Not so immediately, however, that they couldn't loiter here, a little, and wait for the funeral cortege to leave again. While they do, they walk away from the graveside, among the rows of markers. After a few minutes, Sam and Teal'c walk on ahead.

There isn't really much to say. Even as funerals go, this is a sad one. Finally Jack looks at his watch. Pantomime. _Time to get going._ As he turns away, he makes a remark, almost at random:

"He should have been more careful."

At the time Daniel thinks nothing of it. They go their separate ways. It's an hour's drive to the airport, and Jack drives off in another direction: the three of them flew commercial, while General O'Neill obviously caught a military ride. Daniel's in the air before it hits him.

_What the hell was Mitchell supposed to have been more careful **about?**_

Cleaning his gun? Jack knows the tactful cover story is a lie.

Getting caught fucking his teammate?

Well, yes. Probably. And if he _had_ been more careful, they'd probably all be dead some time in the next six months.

Which makes Jack's remark all the more puzzling, as Daniel has explained all this to him. Why he did what he did. Why he couldn't do anything else.

It nags at him for most of a year -- on and off. Mostly off. His days are full. Sometimes on. It's better to think about that than it is to think about villages full of the people dead because he wasn't smart enough, or fast enough, or strong enough, or good enough.

And one night, after a particularly bad day, he picks up the phone, and calls Jack.

"Why should Mitchell have been more careful?" he asks, when Jack picks up the phone.

And it's the middle of the night, and he's obviously woken Jack, but it's as if Jack has been waiting since the day of the funeral for him to ask this question.

"If people know you like that sort of thing, Daniel, they use it against you."

And Jack hangs up the phone, and in Daniel's mind, a little voice is shrieking: _thus speaks the voice of experience_ , and he's casting back in his mind as he holds the dead phone in his hand, over eight years of days and nights and afternoons, trying to see some _hint_ , some _sign..._

There's none. But it doesn't matter. He knows the truth now.

#

It's the anniversary of Mitchell's death. The second anniversary, actually: he missed the first one; he was offworld. He's come to the grave. It seems fair somehow.

And he thinks of Mitchell touching him. Something to be endured to save his friends. But he'd still climaxed.

Would it have been better or worse if the man were someone he ... loves?

He'll never know.

He betrayed more than Mitchell and he never even knew it.

_'If people know you like that sort of thing, Daniel, they use it against you.'_

###


End file.
